


Reciprocate Here

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Prompt Fills 2018 [31]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Stargate, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-19 08:33:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14870366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Written for the numbers comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Atlantis, John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, John helps Rodney solve a mistake in his math and Rodney is both angry and turned on at the same time."Physics professor Rodney is unimpressed when construction worker John tells him that his math is wrong.





	Reciprocate Here

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SherlockianSyndromes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SherlockianSyndromes/gifts).



Rodney hated having to pass the construction site next to the physics building because the construction workers always looked at him when he went by. He could feel their gazes on him as he passed, and he was pretty sure they were judging him.  
  
Atlantis Construction, it had seemed, had hired mostly thugs and delinquents. There was the youngest on the crew, Ford, who had seemingly boundless energy and was always borrowing other people’s tools without asking, and the others yelled at him. There was the biggest on the crew, Ronon, who was all bulging biceps and grunts instead of words and intimidating (but also intriguing) tattoos. There was Lorne, the unofficial crew boss, who had broad shoulders and big hands and a seemingly perpetually sarcastic expression. There was Sheppard, who was surprisingly lean compared to some of the others, and who called Ronon “Chewie” and Lorne “R2” and Ford “Luke” and Teyla, the only woman on the crew, “Obi-Wan.” Even though Rodney dreamed of the day he had a real conversation with Sheppard, Sheppard who was lean and sexy and had just-fucked hair and bright eyes and slender hips that Rodney couldn’t help but imagine putting his hands on, he dreaded the day John called him “Princess.”  
  
Of all of them, Teyla seemed the most pleasant and polite, and for a while she had seemed the most non-threatening till the day she and Ronon got into a friendly sparring match and she almost killed him. Rather than break it up, the others had egged them on, Lorne taking bets and shouting encouragement to both fighters in turn.   
  
Some days they called out to Rodney, a “good morning” or a “hey” or “nice day, isn’t it?” He would ignore them and keep walking.  
  
One day Rodney had a very frustrating staff meeting with the likes of Dr. Kavanagh, the stupidest of all the science faculty at the university - and it was a very big university - and when Lorne called out to him, he snapped,  
  
“It’s Dr. Rodney McKay, not  _hey,_  and I have nothing to say to any of you.”  
  
After that they  _looked_  at him as he went past, but they didn’t say anything to him.  
  
Rodney figured they’d finally settled into a non-communicative detente and he could walk to and from the physics building and the student center (with its admittedly excellent food selection, citrus-free on request) without too much disturbance, and then one day a sudden gust of wind tore his papers out of his hands and scattered them.  
  
All over the construction site.  
  
Lorne whistled shrilly, and immediately all of his coworkers abandoned what they were doing to attempt to catch what they could.   
  
“Be careful with those,” Rodney called out, fretting when Ford pinned one of them to the ground with his boot and then plucked it up out of the dirt.  
  
Teyla, Ronon, and Lorne all proved to have quick reflexes. Lorne could snatch pieces of paper out of the air on the fly. Ronon caught pieces that had blown up high. Teyla ran the fastest, darting here and there to grab what she could before they blew too far away.  
  
Sheppard, though, stopped with just one paper. Was staring at it.  
  
Rodney hurried over to him. “Give me that.”  
  
Sheppard didn’t answer, his gaze intent.  
  
Like a construction worker understood advanced physics or calculus. “Look, Sheppard, Han Solo, whatever you call yourself, those are very important calculations -”  
  
Sheppard lifted his head, eyebrows raised. “Han Solo?”  
  
“It’s - you call Ronon  _Chewie,”_  Rodney protested. Why was he defending himself against this cretin who refused to hand over Rodney’s property? “Give that back.”  
  
“Sure,” Sheppard said. He turned the paper around and tapped at one of the formulas. “But this is wrong.”  
  
Rodney, who was reaching for the paper, paused. Peered at it. “What? That’s impossible.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Because I’m a genius and -”  
  
“And you got this wrong.” Sheppard tapped the paper again. “You confused the negative and fractional exponents.”  
  
Rodney stared at him. Unbelievable. “I didn’t get it  _wrong,_  I’ve been working on these calculations for months.”  
  
“It’s a pretty common algebra mistake people make when they’re doing calculus,” Sheppard said.  
  
“What would  _you_  know about it?”  
  
“Well, I know how to do both algebra and calculus,” Sheppard said.

Rodney reached for the paper.  
  
Sheppard held it out of reach. “Listen to me. This is wrong.”  
  
“No it’s not -”  
  
“This is a calculation to generate a massive amount of energy, right? Possibly enough energy to generate a stable Lorentzian wormhole. But this is wrong. If you convert the energy this way, it’s going to overload the system you’re using to materialize and dematerialize what’s going through the wormhole and everything will blow on the other end, which could back-scatter through the wormhole and blow up everything on the originating end,” Sheppard said.  
  
Rodney lunged for the paper again.  
  
Sheppard danced out of reach, waggling the paper just beyond Rodney’s grasp. “You’re a physics professor, right? You’re going to be doing this experiment in one of the basement labs?”  
  
“So what?”  
  
“So I don’t want to blow up when you get it wrong,” Sheppard said.  
  
“It’s not wrong!”  
  
“Why? Because you’re a genius and I’m a stupid construction worker?”  
  
That brought Rodney up short. “Well -”  
  
“Put your ego aside for one second and listen to me,” Sheppard said. “Please.”  
  
Rodney forced himself to take several deep breaths - Miko, a fellow physics professor and also a former university-level judo champion, was always telling him to take deep breaths - and then he  _looked_  at John. Replayed their conversation in his head.  
  
What  _would_  a stupid construction worker know about fractional and negative exponents? Even if Sheppard had taken algebra and calculus in high school, how would he have noticed the mistake so quickly? If there even was a mistake.  
  
“Fine,” Rodney said. “What is it you want to tell me?”  
  
Sheppard stepped closer, held the paper out but didn’t surrender it. “Look here. See, here’s the fractional exponent, and here’s the negative exponent. You reciprocated here when you shouldn’t have, and you put this negative sign here when you didn’t need it.”  
  
Rodney took a few more breaths, but then he saw - Sheppard was right.  
  
How? How the hell had a construction worker with a penchant for Star Wars and fist fights seen what Rodney and Miko and Radek and Bill and so many other scientists hadn’t seen?  
  
Because he’d been a pair of fresh eyes.  
  
And because he was  _brilliant._  
  
“Now, I’m going to give this back to you and trust that you’ll not let me and my friends get blown up when you finally open a stable Lorentzian wormhole and earn yourself a Nobel Prize,” Sheppard said, and he handed Rodney the paper.  
  
Something brushed Rodney’s arm, and he jumped.  
  
Lorne had collected the rest of the papers from the others and was holding them out to him.  
  
Rodney accepted the various papers with as much dignity as he could muster. “Thank you for helping me retrieve my very important - and yes, soon to be Nobel-worthy - research.” He cleared his throat. “And I - I don’t think you’re a  _stupid_ construction worker. Obviously you’re incredibly brilliant. It’s just that -”  
  
He darted a glance at Lorne.  
  
Lorne studied him for a moment, then raised his hands in surrender, backed away. Teyla, Ronon, and Ford followed him - to the other end of the construction site so they were out of earshot.  
  
“On the one hand,” Rodney said, “I’m furious that you questioned my brilliance in front of an audience.”  
  
Sheppard shrugged. “Even geniuses make mistakes once in a while. Better to notice it now than later.”  
  
“On the other hand,” Rodney continued, “I find it incredibly sexy that you’re this brilliant, and  _what_  are you doing working construction when you’re all -”  
  
“All Good Will Hunting?”   
  
“Something like that,” Rodney said.  
  
Sheppard looked away for a moment. “I wasn’t always a construction worker. And I didn’t grow up very Good Will Hunting. Finest private schools money can buy. Degree in applied mathematics from Stanford, masters in topographical combinatorics from CalTech. Joined the Air Force. Got out. Adjusting to civilian life is - hard. Harder than people realize.”  
  
And then Rodney got a good look at Sheppard’s t-shirt beneath his neon yellow construction vest, at the little slogan on it.  
  
Addicts to Athletes.  
  
“So you’re an athlete as well as a construction worker? What’s your sport?”  
  
Sheppard met his gaze again. “Ah - running. It’s all Lorne’s fault. He can run forever. I used to do a lot of running, when I was in. Getting back in the habit has been - well.”

“So you’ve got good cardio?” Rodney asked.  
  
Sheppard nodded. “Yeah. Between this job and running. Why?”  
  
“Because,” Rodney said, “I’ve been looking for someone who can keep up with me. Not just in the physics lab.”  
  
Sheppard arched an eyebrow, looking amused. “Oh yeah? Where else?”  
  
Rodney stepped a little closer, lowered his voice. “My bed. If you think you can keep up.” As soon as he said it, he realized how insane that was, because Sheppard had just told Rodney that he was ex-military, but then Sheppard nodded and smirked.  
  
“I know I can.”  
  
“Good.” Rodney reached into his pocket, found a business card, scrawled his personal number on the back of it. “You seem to have a thing for my numbers, so -”  
  
Sheppard accepted the card from him, studied it. “You’re on, M. Rodney McKay.” He looked up. “What’s the M stand for?”  
  
“Why? What’s your first name?”  
  
“John.”  
  
“Well, John, let’s stick with Rodney for now.”  
  
“All right. Rodney.” John tucked the card into his pocket.  
  
“Call me,” Rodney said, and then his smartwatch buzzed and he saw Miko was texting him, demanding to know where he was, she was getting hungry. “I have to go.”  
  
“Go,” John said.  
  
“I mean it,” Rodney said as he headed for the student center. “Call me!”  
  
Rodney thought he saw Lorne collecting money from Ford, Teyla, and Ronon, but he didn’t care.  
  
Three nights later, he and John spent several energetic hours in Rodney’s bed. Afterward, they collapsed to the mattress, breathing hard but sated.  
  
“You gonna tell me what the M stands for?” John asked.  
  
“Maybe later. I like the way you scream my name when you come.”  
  
“Fair enough.”  
  
“If you’re up for it -”  
  
“I’m not a teenager anymore.”  
  
“I have some new formulas for you to look at.”  
  
“I will look at however many formulas you want if it gets me more nights like this.”  
  
“You can have as many nights like this as you want, formulas or no formulas,” Rodney said.  
  
John gazed into his eyes for a long moment, then leaned in, kissed him. “You know how many nights I want?”  
  
“How many?” Rodney asked.  
  
John scooped up the pen Rodney kept on the nightstand for when he got inspired in the middle of the night, and he uncapped it.  
  
And scrawled a long, complex formula on Rodney’s thigh.  
  
“Wait - what?”  
  
John kissed him. “Happy solving. Remember - don’t mix up what to do with those negative and fractional exponents!” And then he rolled out of bed, headed into the kitchen for some leftovers.  
  
Rodney watched him go, galled. And then set to solving.  
  
He felt better once he figured out the answer: infinity.


End file.
